Thanks to the seemingly inexplicable phenomenon of crustacean mob mentality, for generations crab fishermen have left their catch baskets uncovered, for steadfast captivity is gruesomely guaranteed by fellow inmates’ kapoesque brutality.

Bright with life
percipient pale blue eyes
set
deeply
past virile
chocolate-tanned chiseled brows
caressed harshly
by the waning years’
abrasion of
wind
& setting suns,
witnesses
daily
to brutal,
kapoesque control
of unyielding courage,
perseverance
in the face
of pessimism and envy

The singular
set of bounding blue-tipped
king crab claws
flexing brawn
pull doggedly
upward
from the smothering
abyss
of the crabman’s creel

Teetering
upon the hand-woven wicker precipice
of the unknown
universe:
freedom …
to breathe, uninhibitedly
to live, noisily
to create, frenetically
to thrive, boundlessly
to love, with abandon
within sweet
& savory
seductive sight

Then,
as if by cruel design,
in one of life’s
more mercilessly
culled
capricious moments,
insisting imperiously
upon untimely instruction
of its omnipotent
and fleeting ways,
the crisp, resounding
crack!
of one fellow-contorted-captive’s-stabbing-clamp-like-pinch
jerks
& tugs
forcibly
at the might
& strength
of indomitable determination